Why this Blog ?
News articles in the Wide World of Web, quite often disappear with time, when they are relocated as archives with a different url. Archives in this blog serve as a library for those who are interested in doing Research on Aadhaar Related Topics. Articles are published with details of original publication date and the url.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholarUsha Ramanathandescribes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the#BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Friday, April 28, 2017

11162 - Aadhaar case: An imagined appeal before the Supreme Court as it decides how we live, laugh and die - Scroll.In

I appear on behalf of the Citizens for the Protection of Privacy Rights, who have been allowed by this Honourable Court to intervene as petitioners. As directed by the court, we have submitted detailed written arguments. I am grateful to Your Lordships for giving us the opportunity to make this very brief oral presentation.

The Supreme Court, in numerous cases, has already interpreted, defined and expanded the understanding of right to life and personal liberty. It is not my intention to go over this subject again. Moreover, the previous benches that heard cases of this nature have made it amply clear that if there is a right to privacy, it takes off from the fundamental right to life, liberty, freedom of speech and expression, etc.

In the 1996 case of People’s Union for Civil Liberties, it was held that right to privacy is a part of the right to life and personal liberty enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution. Once the facts in a given case constitute a right to privacy, Article 21 is attracted. The said right cannot be curtailed except according to procedure established by law.

The task before this Honourable bench would be simple if it merely had to read through these previous observations and arrive at a similar conclusion.

However, the petitioners in this case want something more – that the right to privacy should be declared as a fundamental right and that the government should not make any law that violates it. And, if this were to happen, the petitioners argue that the constitutional right to directly approach the Supreme Court or the high courts would apply.

Changed circumstances

So what changed circumstances have prompted the petitioners to approach this Honourable Court? What apprehensions do citizens have about “weapons” in the state’s armoury, such as collection of personal biometric data, DNA profiling, round-the-clock CCTC surveillance, restrictions on encryption software, mobile phone tapping, etc.?

Your Lordships, the very ground beneath our feet has moved. To describe it as a tectonic shift would be an understatement. This shift has happened in three different areas and has changed the discourse on privacy and related rights.

1. The concept of privacy and understanding of what constitutes violation of privacy rights.

2. The highly sophisticated and secret technologies available with government and corporations, enabling them to violate these rights with impunity.

3. The adoption of the “national security” state, a new global cult emanating from the West.

To understand these three aspects let us take a step back and examine the nature of the allegations of violation of privacy that were at the core of the previous cases that came up before this court in previous years.

Apart from the 1996 case of PUCL of Union of India, these include 1962’s Kharak Singh vs UP Police, Govind vs State of MP in 1975, and R Rajagopal vs State of Tamil Nadu in 1994, among others.

These cases broadly dealt with physical surveillance of alleged or convicted criminals and physical wiretapping of telephones. Earlier, surveillance meant constant observation of a person’s house by a police officer, who was physically present but hidden from sight. Wiretapping meant an actual physical wiretap at a telephone exchange or telephone pole, connected to a tape recorder.

But what is the state of surveillance today?

Every year, on World Day Against Cyber Censorship, a group called Reporters Without Borders publishes the “Enemies of the Internet” Report, which focuses on government units and agencies that implement online censorship and surveillance.

The “Enemies of the Internet” Report for 2014 contains the following passage:

“The extensive Indian surveillance system has been expanded since the Mumbai attacks in 2008. The Central Monitoring System, developed by the Centre for Development of Telematics, allows the government direct, unlimited and real-time access to a wide variety of electronic communications without relying on internet service providers…”

Below is a very short list of the surveillance apparatus at the disposal of the Indian state. It has been compiled relying solely on published reports within the country and documents in the public domain.

Central Monitoring System: A covert, surveillance-related project run by the Centre for Development of Telematics. An India Today article from 2014 reads, “Forget NSA, India’s Centre for Development of Telematics is one of the top 3 worst online spies”.

DRDO NETRA: Another mass surveillance project, it is developed by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics laboratory under the Defence Research and Development Organisation.The system can detect within seconds selective words such as bomb, blast, attack or kill from emails, instant messages, status updates and tweets. The system will also be capable of gauging suspicious voice traffic on Skype and Google Talk.

Lawful Intercept and Monitoring: These systems are used by the government to intercept records of voice, SMSes, GPRS data, details of a subscriber’s application and recharge history and call detail records. It can also monitor internet traffic, emails, web browsing, Skype and any other internet activity of Indian users.

The Lawful Intercept and Monitoring system to monitor internet traffic is deployed by the government at the international gateways of some large internet service providers. These surveillance systems are under complete control of the government, and their functioning is secretive and unknown to the ISPs.

As will be clear to Your Lordships, the main themes underlying the various mass surveillance projects of the government are total secrecy and a complete disregard for the privacy of the citizens. These projects are certainly a far cry from plainclothes policemen leaning on a lamp post opposite your front door and pretending to read a newspaper.

On October 8, the Central Bureau of Investigation submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court in connection with a cyber porn case. It said: “It is imperative, in the interest of ensuring speedy detection and prosecution of offenders, that CBI officers of the rank of superintendent of police … are posted with Google, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Hike, Bing (Microsoft), Yahoo and other popular sites.”

The investigation agency also cited the example of the US, where Federal Bureau of Investigation officers are posted with large internet firms and ISPs.

Your Lordships, the source of our security agencies’ inspiration is now abundantly clear. The people depriving us of our right to privacy have just one argument, originally put forth by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Others have put it even more crudely: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
The most resounding response to this argument was given by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say,” he said.

But it is not enough to stop at Snowden’s remarks. Because the “nothing to hide” argument implies that the right to privacy, being individual-based, has no societal implications. I may have nothing to hide. But a whistleblower may want to hide his identity. A journalist may want to hide the identity of his or her sources. We all do not want a state-installed CCTV in our homes.

In addition, this moves the burden of proof from the perpetrator to the victim. It is for the surveyor to justify why he wants to observe the victim when the victim has nothing to hide, not the victim who has to justify why he doesn’t want surveillance. And it’s not just the one victim that is being observed – it is every single citizen.

As Spiros Simitis, the world’s first data protection commissioner, argued in an influential article in 1978, “privacy considerations no longer arise out of particular individual problems; rather they express conflicts affecting everyone”.

Credit: stock.tookapic.com

An unholy alliance

Your Lordships, I shall now move on from the changing concepts and our understanding of privacy to the second aspect of the changed circumstances – the tectonic shift in the availability of technologies. Here, we not only have a culpable state, but also multinational corporations, whose marketing interests coincide with the state’s surveillance interests to produce one of the most unholy alliances in modern history.

On October 7, the Delhi High Court pulled up the central government for “hiding contracts” with Google, WhatsApp and Facebook from the court. “Why are you not filing the contract? Why are you hiding them from us? What is the hesitation? It’s been five months since our May 7 direction,”the bench of Justices BD Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva said.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by former Bharatiya Janata Party member KN Govindacharya, who raised questions about the use of social media by government departments.

“The Centre has become the biggest marketing agent for social media sites,” Govindacharya’s counsel told the court, adding that the government was transferring or surrendering all intellectual property rights of the data being uploaded on these sites.

The world’s spying agencies have tools that allow them to take over smartphones with just a text message. The set of tools involved is known as “Smurf Suite”, according to Edward Snowden. Each of the individual tools has its own name. Dreamy Smurf lets the phone be powered on and off, and Nosey Smurf lets spies turn the microphone on and listen in on users, even if the phone itself is turned off.

National security

Your Lordships, since the 9/11 attacks, the “war on terror” has transformed into the cult of “national security”. This has been the source of all mantras for governments and their security agencies. Citizens, fed on the opium of this new religion, are in no state to question the overbearing force of the state’s coercion. They are willing to fall in line in the face of these two magic words and are willing to surrender their most precious rights – the right to think and the right to question.

May I draw the attention of Your Lordships to the Report of the Standing Committee on Finance (2011-12) on the proposed National Identification Authority of India Bill (2010) as it is directly related to the present Aadhaar case before this bench?

Concerns were raised by various members of the committee on the same issues of privacy and data protection that are now before you. The responses from the ministry were all based on the same template, as stated below:

Privacy? Yes. We understand your concerns. The Privacy Act will take care of the privacy right issues. Data Protection? Yes. We understand your concerns. The Data Protection Act will take care of the data protection issues.

To date there is no Privacy Act, no Data Protection Act, no DNA Profiling Act, and no Whistle-blower Act. The implementation of Aadhaar is being pushed through without them.
The impassioned plea before this bench is to let the scheme be implemented on a voluntary basis as it will be beneficial for the millions of poor. But there can be no voluntary implementation without informed consent. As a report in Scroll.in pointed out, “Informed consent can only exist when a person is consenting to every intended use, present and future, with clear knowledge of the risks and ramifications. This is clearly not the case, and can never be,”

Your Lordships, it is pathetic that the government wants the poor to barter their fundamental rights for welfare schemes. So the government’s only argument is: Allow us to do this because it is expedient to do this.

In one order passed by the previous bench hearing this case, their Lordships were kind enough to instruct the government to advertise widely and to communicate to the people that the Aadhaar card is a completely voluntary scheme and that no one can be compelled to use it except for LPG subsidy and some other public distribution service facilities.

To the best of our knowledge, the government has done little to implement this order.

Is it then surprising that the petitioners have approached this Honourable Court to now unequivocally declare that privacy is a fundamental right? How much faith should the people and how much faith should Your Lordships place in the statements that the government makes before various courts?

Let me now quoteJulian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks: “The state would leech into the veins and arteries of our new societies, gobbling up every relationship expressed or communicated, every webpage read, every message sent and every thought Googled, and then store the knowledge, billions of interceptions a day, undreamed of power, in top secret warehouses, forever. And then the state would reflect on what it had learned back into the physical world, to start wars, to target drones, to manipulate United Nations committees and trade deals, and to do favours for its vast connected network of industries, insiders and cronies.”

Before I come to the end, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to this Honourable bench, for giving me such a patient hearing. Your Lordships, this courtroom, as on many another glorious occasions, has become the centre stage of public attention.

Perhaps we are once again at that crossroads in history, when the judgement you pronounce, shall determine the lives of the millions of citizens of this country – how they live, love, laugh and die.

The writer is the coordinator and founder member of the Dharma Rain Centre for Buddhist Studies.

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." Money Life Article

Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt. -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

The Rural Development Ministry headed byJairam Rameshcreated a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NRGA unless all residents are covered.

What People Opposed to Aadhaar said:

Aadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”

John Dreze,Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, Ex-NAC Member

UID project is full of ambiguity, confusions and suspicions, but no answers -Usha Ramanathan

The Reserve Bank says Aadhaar is not good enough to open a bank account

You can Beat the UID reader with candle wax and Fevicol - J.T.D Souza

The very premise of Aadhar is flawed

It is a certification that those who claim to think on behalf of India or its underprivileged understand it so differently from the beneficiaries they think of.

In a nutshell, Aadhar will not bring about any of the benefits that are intended for its intended beneficiaries. Because that will be solving a problem of governance by adding another layer, that is imaginary and unnecessary.

To call it "technological leadership" is as removed from reality as calling a reader a writer of the book. At best it will mean that we can take a technology and ram it down the throat of the poor while other nations with stronger democratic roots and respect for citizens have not been able to do so for reasons of building consensus.

"Aadhar" is like dropping a car by helicopter in a village where there is no road and hope every villager can reach wherever they may want to go.

For anyone willing to think, Aadhar is a reflection of the huge disconnect that India has from both the world of the under privileged and the rest of the world.

Aadhaar the Last Nail in UPA II's Coffin

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

UID NOT UBIQUITOUS ANY LONGER MR. NILEKANI - TRUTH HAS PREVAILED JUST BEFORE THE ELECTIONS.

WhatsApp gained users because it was useful, and people wanted to download and use it. Aadhaar, sadly, cannot be said to have "users" yet. There are as yet few uses. This is why Mr Nilekani has to emphasise the number of enrolments, not the benefits that flow from Aadhaar - because those exist today only in theory. And the simple fact is that enrolments should not be seen as a sign of success. The Only Good Idea - Business Standard

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." Money Life Article

The expose shows how citizens of Nepal and Bangladesh are offered Aadhaar cards without identity proof. The sting reveals that even MLAs and gazetted officers sign on the forged documents to make Aadhaar cards. IBN Live

To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt. -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar,MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

Please think through before supporting UID/ Aadhaar, so you do not regret your decision.

Emphasising the need for separation of powers, James Madison bluntly observed in his essay, Federalist 51."Because men are not angels," they need government to prevent them, by force when necessary, from invading the lives, property, and liberty of their fellow citizens. He also noted that the same non-angelic men can wield the government’s coercive machinery to use it tyrannically—even in a democracy.

·The Rural Development Ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh created a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NRGA unless all residents are covered.

·Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

·AaAdhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.” John Dreze, Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, Ex-NAC Member

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”Mahatma Gandhi

"Protest is not something you delegate, politics is not something you outsource. It is what you stand for literally"Shiv Visvanathan, Indian Express.

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always. "Mahatma Gandhi

"The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are."Mahatma Gandhi

"Let us begin by being clear... about General Smuts' new law. All Indians must now be fingerprinted... like criminals. Men and women. No marriage other than a Christian marriage is considered valid. Under this act our wives and mothers are whores. And every man here is a bastard."-Mahatma Gandhi

"It is easy to laugh at people who fire arrows at helicopter gunships, but on the other hand it is not so easy to defeat people who are willing to fire arrows at helicopter gunships."Vietnam: A War Lost And Won' authored by Nigel Cawthorne

You can fool all the people sometimes,You can fool some people all the time,But you cannot fool all the people all the time.Truth Shall prevail.Satyameva Jayate.

Aadhaar was meant to deduplicate peoples id's and Aadhaar itself is a Duplicate of NPR and needs deduplication according to Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) headed by Secretary Sumit Bose.

Which is the bigger crime a poor family double dipping on PDS to stay alive or Govt wasting mega bucks on a white elephant called Aadhaar ?

Remember Aadhaar is not an ID card but just a Number to authenticate and tell you if you are in fact you and UIDAI will splurge Rs1.5 lakh crores ( Rs 1,500, 000, 000,000 ) in the next five years. What do people with Aadhaar get in return ? A lot of empty promises. It won't take long for people in India to wake up and understand what is going on.

How do we explain Loss of Privacy?Privacy is like our VISION.We will appreciate its loss when we go BLIND.

Massive collection of Video Clips on Unique Identity. Click on this Link http://flotadaslimaymedio.com.ar/tag/unique-identification/orderby-relevance/page1.html

WHAT AM I ?????"Yes, it is voluntary. But the service providers might make it mandatory. In the long run, I wouldn't call it compulsory. I would rather say that it will become ubiquitous"Nandan Nilekani, UIDAI Chairman (Excerpts from a conversation with Sadiq Naqvi and Akash Bisht) Answer: Aadhaar, the Unique Identity number & a Bar Code that each and every Indian will be branded with linked to a National Database maintained by UIDAI, with Help from L1 Identity a US Multinational.

"Opponents of the Aadhaar number have included advocates of privacy rights. The number however, is linked to limited personal information, with no profiling data included. Submitting a father’s name for example, is not required, allowing residents to adopt any name of their choosing and free themselves from caste identification."Nandan Nilekani's personal Opinion1061 - We have your number - OUTLOOK

Do all Indians want to become Numbers and be tracked like animals ?Do we have a Choice ?

IF IT TAKES SIX MONTHS TO ISSUE ONE MILLION NOT SO UINQUE IDENTITIES, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO ISSUE 600 MILLION OR 1.2 BILLION UNIQUE IDENTITIES ?

WORDS OF WISDOM

“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”Mahatma Gandhi"I have never known legislation of this nature being directed against free men in any part of the world. I know that indentured Indians in Natal are subject to a drastic system of passes, but these poor fellows can hardly be classed as free men."Mahatma Gandhi"...giving of finger prints, required by the Ordinance, was quite a novelty in South Africa. With a view to seeing some literature on the subject, I read a volume on finger impressions by Mr. Henry, a police officer, from which I gathered that finger prints were required by law only from criminals."Mahatma Gandhi"Democracy was the greatest gift of our freedom struggle to the people of India. Independence made the nation free. Democracy made our people free. A free people are a people who are governed by their will and ruled with their consent. A free people are a people who participate in decisions affecting their lives and their destinies".Rajiv Gandhi “How shall a democracy ensure its secret intelligence apparatus becomes neither a vehicle for conspiracy nor a suppressor of traditional liberties of democratic self-government?”Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Hi-tech without Panchayati Raj is just a bogus stunt for geeks and nerds."Mani Shankar Aiyar, Congress leaderAadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”John Dreze, Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, National Advisory Committee Member"It is a Bad Idea to Marry UID with NREGA"Reetika Kehera"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."Ayn Rand “The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy”.Alex Carey, a noted Australian activist."People willing to trade freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."Ben Franklin.Liberty has never come from the government; it has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it."Woodrow Wilson"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".Edmund Burke"Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist".Edmund Burke"Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing's snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms".Simon Jenkins, Guardian UK“Privacy is not something that people feel, except in its absence. Remove it and you destroy something at the heart of being human.”Phil Booth, National co-ordinator of the campaign No2IDIn reality, Aadhaar intrudes into people's privacy that is hidden under the guise of reaching out.Srijit Mishra

Ten things you must know about UID

Some facts about the UID project that Indian residents should be aware of:

1. Aadhaar (the UID number) is not mandatory. People can choose not to be a part of the exercise.2. It is not restricted to Indian citizens only and is meant for residents of India, irrespective of their citizenship. An Aadhaar card does not establish citizenship of India, it is meant for identification.3. Even people without proper identification documents can apply for Aadhaar. Authorised individuals, who already have an Aadhaar, can introduce residents who don't possess any documents to establish their identity to enable them to receive their Aadhaar.4. Aadhar will not replace other identification documents such as ration card or passport.5. The UIDAI will collect only biometric and demographic information about an individual and will not ask for info on caste, religion or language.6. Date of Birth is optional (for people who don't remember/know their date of birth) and approximate age will suffice.7. Transgenders have been included in the options under gender and they need not classify themselves as male or female.8. Residents of India have an option to link their UID number to their bank accounts.9. To get an UID number residents will have to go to the nearest Aadhaar enrollment camp, details of which will be published in the local media. Residents will have to carry along certain documents, mentioned in the advertisement. Residents will also be photographed and have their fingerprints and iris scanned. The Aadhaar numbers will be issued within 20-30 days.10. The draft National Identification Authority of India bill has provisions against impersonation, providing false information and for protection of personal information collected by the UIDAI. Violations can attract penalties in the form of fines of up to Rs 1 crore and imprisonment extending up to a life term.